Albert Freedman

If the information had not come out, the American people would have gone on with their merry lives. They would have had entertainment, then it would have gone on to some other form of entertainment on television. What really took place, was that live television essentially stopped with my demise and the demise of my show. Television then went into the area of filmed product.

About this interview

In his nearly four-hour Archive interview, Albert Freedman talks about his early days as a writer and producer for radio, on such audience participation shows as Earn Your Vacation and A Dollar A Minute. He discusses his transition to TV, writing for The Pinky Lee Show and You Bet Your Life. He describes his early association with Jack Barry and Dan Enright when he produced the quiz shows Juvenile Jury and Life Begins at Eighty in the mid-1950s. Recalling his work as a producer on Tic Tac Dough and Twenty-One, Freedman also shares his memories of his testimonies before the grand jury hearings in New York and the later Harris subcommittee in Washington D.C., when Twenty-One became the center of controversy during the Quiz Show Scandals. He also elaborates on his dealings with Charles Van Doren, the star witness of the Washington hearings, whom he initially booked on Twenty-One. Freedman speaks of his later work in television, after a long absence, on such series as KTLA's Paramount Television and Your Funny Funny Films, in the 1960s. Jeff Kisseloff conducted the interview in Marin County, CA on June 23, 2000.

If the information had not come out, the American people would have gone on with their merry lives. They would have had entertainment, then it would have gone on to some other form of entertainment on television. What really took place, was that live television essentially stopped with my demise and the demise of my show. Television then went into the area of filmed product.